Page 5 of Control Freak

Shiloh chewed his inner cheek, and I braced myself for some kind of well-meaning suggestion thatmaybeI just hadn’t tried hard enough. Hadn’t done enough therapy or pushed hard enough to get past the anxiety.

Hell, it wasn’t even totally untrue. If I hadn’t abandoned therapy for the past ten years, I might be in a better place. I’d been making good progress in high school. But then Mom died, Gray left, and I had a mess on my hands that took precedence over my therapy. Besides, I’d learned the hard way while away at college that I couldn’t force my boundaries to go away.

“I’m glad we have this, then,” Shiloh said with a small smile.

It was the best thing he could have said. My chest loosened. “Yeah, me too.”

This might be only a fantasy, but it was the closest thing to real I’d ever have.

CHAPTER 2

Shiloh

I walkedthe perimeter of my third-grade classroom, checking in on my students’ work. Sierra had filled in the capitals on her United States map and was now doodling pictures in the states to represent them: a sunflower in Kansas, a cowboy hat in Texas, and a snowflake in North Dakota.

When I saw Nebraska, with a little corncob sketched in, my stomach fluttered. That was wherehelived.

Holden.

But I shouldn’t be thinking about him in class. Or about anything to do with that part of my life.

I squeezed her shoulder. “Good work.”

She smiled up at me, pride shining from her eyes. “Thanks. I studied really hard!”

I didn’t doubt it. Sierra didn’t get a lot of attention at home. She filled that void by earning her teacher’s praise instead.

I moved on, glancing at Jacob and Kelly’s work, both on the right track. I paused by Luke’s half-filled map. He was struggling.

“Think about the song we came up with in class,” I suggested. “It’s a mnemonic device to help you remember.”

“Ican’tremember the song.”

I hummed a few bars, then watched the click when he remembered a few of the words and bent forward to scribble in another capital.

My classroom door opened. “Mr. Blum.”

I glanced toward the doorway, taken aback by the stern expression on the vice principal’s face. Tasha Chavez and I usually got along just fine.

“What is it?” I asked.

“You’re needed in the office. I’ll watch your class.”

I dredged up a smile. “Okay! Kids, you heard Ms. Chavez. Continue with your maps.”

All the way to the principal’s office, my mind spun with reasons for this interruption. It had to be serious, judging by Tasha’s expression. I didn’t have any family here, so it couldn’t be news of a tragedy. Maybe one of my students had lost someone, and the administrators wanted to inform me first?

But that didn’t make sense. When Jesse Rains’s dad died, they’d pulled her straight into the office.

Of course, there was one very obvious reason they might call me in. But I didn’t want to consider the possibility, because that would be…bad.

Really bad.

I entered the office. The front desk receptionist, Mary, waved me on. “Principal’s waiting for you.”

The door to Principal Weigand’s office was open. When I entered, he looked up at me, expression tight.

“Mr. Blum, sit down.”